Tag Archives: how to dominate

I’m sure you have seen the movie “Moneyball”, it is almost unbelievable how much statistics changed the game of baseball. It is almost uncomfortable to think that a winning team can be built based on analyzing data.

Has it ever happened to you that you googled a product, then the next time you went on Facebook the same exact item was advertised in the sidebar?

Certainly major league sports, big trading companies and online retailers have a lot of money to invest in data analysis. So much so, that small business owner often feel disadvantaged, and think they have no chance to make it in today’s economy.

You, as a small business owner have something unique, something that big companies find hard to achieve. You can build personal relationships with your clients.

Just because you don’t have the resources to build custom data mining software doesn’t mean that you should do nothing!

Recently a business owner came to us, and after a short talk we realized he had no idea how his business performed financially over the year before. Basically he’s been flying in the dark for over a year without knowing how much he spent on what. He didn’t even know if he made a profit or not.

Starting a small business doesn’t mean you have to be in a disadvantaged position.

Michael Lewis said “People… operate with beliefs and biases. To the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage”

To gain advantage, first you should find a qualified bookkeeper, or CPA, and ask for monthly or biweekly financial statements. Then please spend some time and analyze the information presented to you. Numbers by themselves mean nothing; you have the story that can be built around the data.

You would be surprised how much of a difference this simple exercise makes. This could be the difference between competing with your peers or dominating them!